APPENDIX. No. V. 459 



Egypt ; Fuirena umbellata and Eleocharis capitafa,* both of which have been 

 found in America, India, and New Holland ; and Cypcrus ligularis indigenous 

 to other parts of Africa and to America. 



Hypalyphbm argenteum, a species established by Vahl from specimens of 

 India and Senegal, and since observed in equinoctial America by Baron 

 Humboldt, is also in the collection. 



The name Hypcclyptum, under which I have formerly described the genus 

 that includes H. argenteum,f was adopted from Vahl, without enquiry into its 

 origin. It is probably, however, a corruption of Hyptrlyfriim,* by which 

 M. Richard, as he himself assures me, chiefly intended another genus, with 

 apparently similar characters, though a very different liabit, and one of whose 

 species is described by Vahl in Hypaslj^tum; his character being so con- 

 structed as to include both genera. M. Kunth has lately published H. argen- 

 teum under the name of Hypaelvtrum ;§ but in adopting the generic character 

 given in the Prodromus Flora; Novae Hollandiae, he has in fact excluded the 

 plants that M. Richard more particularly meant to refer to that genus. It is 

 therefore necessary, in order to avoid further confusion, to give a new name to 

 Hypaelyptum as I have proposed to limit it, which may be Lipocarpha, 

 derived from the whole of its squamas being deciduous. 



In describing Lipocarphn (undei the name of Hypaelyptum) in the work 

 referred to, I have endeavoured to estabhsh the analogy of its structure to that 

 of Kyllinga ,• the inner or vipper squamae being in both genera opposite to 

 the inferior squama, or anterior and posterior, with relation to the axis of the 

 spikelet: while the squamae of Richard's Hypaelytrum being lateral, or right 

 and left with respect to the axis of the spikelet,|l were compared to those of 

 the female flowers of Diplacrum, to the utriculus or nectarium of Carex, and 

 to the lateral bracteas of Lepeyrodia, a genus belonging to the nearly related 

 order Rcstiaceae.^ But as in Hypcelytrum, according to M. Richard's descrip- 

 tion, and I beheve also in his Diplasia,** there are sometimes more than two 

 inner squamae, which are then imbricate, they may in both these genera be 

 considered as a spikelet reduced to a single flower, as in several other genera 



• Prodr Flor. Nev. HoU. I, p. 225. Scirpus capitatus fVilld. up. pi. 1, p. J94, exclus. 

 nyn. Groiiovii. 



+ Prodr. Ftor Aov. Boll. \,p. 219. + Persoon St/n. Plant. 1, p. 70. 



^ Kcv. Gen. et Sp. Plant. \,p, «18. J Prodr. Flor. Nov. Holl. I, p. 219. 



1 Flinders's Voy. 2, p. 579. ** Penoon Syn. Pi, 1, p. 70. 



